Courage Campaign in the News

After a federal judge overturned President Barack Obama’s 2013 order extending overtime pay to domestic workers, Gov. Jerry Brown rescinded his hard-fought deal with California’s In-Home Supportive Services employees that promised to cover overtime, travel and wait time costs. Home health aides have since launched a renewed campaign against the governor, calling for equality with other workers. Their latest protest gives them their own day in court: a mock tribunal putting California on trial for its treatment of in-home caregivers. Former state Senate candidate Sandra Fluke and Paul Song, executive chairman of the Courage Campaign, are among the “jurors” for the event, 12:30 p.m on the north steps of the Capitol, which is organized by the United Domestic Workers of America.

The Montgomery County Probate Office will stop issuing same-sex marriage licenses, Probate Judge Steven Reed announced Wednesday. Citing Tuesday evening's ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court, Reed said he has no choice but to stop issuing the licenses.

Dr. Paul Song, executive chairman of the pro-marriage equality group Courage Campaign described the ruling as "nothing short of outrageous" in a Tuesday statement. "Once again, Alabama has put itself on the wrong side of history. We are confident that once the dust settles, marriage equality will be the law not only in Alabama but nationwide as well," Song said. "Love is love. It is not something that should be subject to being legislated or litigated."

Days after possibly the largest anti-fracking protest in history, environmentalists delivered a petition to California Gov. Jerry Brown demanding a ban on the controversial practice. The petition, which contained 184,000 signatures, was delivered Monday by a coalition of environmental progress groups, including the California-based Courage Campaign, Daily Kos, 350.org, Food and Water Watch, CREDO, Environmental Action, Presente, Forecast the Facts, and RH Reality Check.

SACRAMENTO (CN) - Thousands of anti-fracking protesters marched through Gov. Jerry Brown's hometown of Oakland Saturday and by Monday 113,000 of their signatures had crossed his desk at the state Capitol.

COME TOGETHER: Following a weekend “march for real climate leadership” attempting to catch Gov. Jerry Brown’s attention in his home city of Oakland, anti-fracking activists will visit the governor’s office at the Capitol at 4 p.m. to deliver 184,000 signatures calling on Brown to follow New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s lead and ban the controversial oil extraction method in California.

Area Congressman John Garamendi a couple of weeks ago acknowledged he was approached as a possible Democratic candidate to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated in 2016 by Barbara Boxer. However, it has been state Attorney General Kamala Harris, also a Democrat, who has been getting the bulk of the attention as a possible successor. A recent "pulse poll" by the Democratic-leaning Democracy for America and Courage Campaign shows Harris a solid front-runner and Garamendi listed sixth of 15 potential Democratic candidates. In a prepared statement, Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, a former lieutenant governor and state insurance commissioner, said earlier he would consider running for the seat. But, he also said, "my first duty is to the people of the 3rd Congressional District."

One day later, with few other Democrats close to the starting line, Elizabeth Warren endorsed Harris. Eight days later, the Howard Dean-founded Democracy for America–which is part of a coalition coaxing Warren to run for president–released a poll conducted with the California-based progressive Courage Campaign. Unscientific, conducted of the members who’d clicked through online in the week after Harris’s announcement, it found that 64.5 percent of California DFA/Courage voters wanted Harris to be the Democratic nominee. The rest of the vote scattered between some lesser-known Democrats. Tom Steyer got 2.7 percent of it.

Hundreds of people gathered in downtown San Francisco Wednesday to mark the fifth anniversary of a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on election campaigns.

The Courage Campaign has been critical of Brown arguing that while he has done a “heroic job” of bringing the state back from the budget cliff, “much to our dismay, his proposed budget has prioritized savings for a rainy-day, even though the economic storm that began in 2008 is still raging on families across the state. California continues to have the highest poverty rate in the nation and this budget fails to prioritize the nearly nine million Californians struggling to make ends meet everyday.”